


Eggnog and the Importance of not Being Alone

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2017 [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Bunker Fic, Castiel in the Bunker, Christmas, Claire Novak in the Bunker, Community: wishlist_fic, Found Family, Happy Ending, It's all just goopy happy fluff, M/M, Novak Family Feels, Parental Castiel, Parental Dean Winchester, Prompt Fic, okay?, somewhat future fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 23:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13088067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: It's Christmas Eve and Claire doesn't want to spend it alone.(Everything is beautiful, even though it hurts a little.)





	Eggnog and the Importance of not Being Alone

**Author's Note:**

> For ayremis, who asked for Destiel Bunker Christmas fic with Claire and happy families. I started outside the bunker, I hope you'll forgive me. 
> 
> This concludes this year's Wishlist Madness. It's been less prompts and mayber smaller, less... good(?) fills than usual because the last few months have not been kind to me, but I hope you had fun anyway. I wish you and your loved ones a lovely time and a happy 2018 and we'll see each other next year, mhm?
> 
> Thank you for your attention.

+

Claire is fiddling with her phone. 

Claire has been fiddling with her phone for half an hour. 

If she keeps going like this, she’s going to break it and she doesn’t have money to replace it. She’s not even using it in any way, just turning it over and over and over in her hands, staring at the black screen and turning it again. Occasionally, she drops it, accidentally, and it thuds onto the scarred wood of the table she’s sitting at. Once, it misses her half-full glass of coke by a hair. 

The waitress has been giving her half-pitying, half-annoyed looks for the last seventeen minutes. 

This is fucking ridiculous. 

She’s a grown-ass woman, she can spend Christmas alone. Has done it before. More than once. But. 

But. 

But the last time she crossed ways with Dean and Cas, Dean gave her his number. Which, yeah, he’s done that before, they all keep pretty regular contact now, what with her out in the world, hunting, instead of living safe with Jody, but. 

Again. 

So many buts.

This time, Dean took her aside as they were splitting up, reeled her in for a hug, smuggled fifty bucks into her jacket pocket and said, “For anything, Claire-bear, you hear? Even if you just want to bitch about gas prices or, like, boy troubles.” He winked. “As long as you’re aware that I’ll beat up said boy afterward. I have angel express. I can do it.”

Because Cas has his wings back, these days, and Dean takes inordinate glee in that, even though Sam says he hates Angel Transport. Those two are so freaking weird and so, so, _so_ gone on each other. Seriously. 

So. Dean told her to call for, like, feelings stuff, not just work stuff, and she kind of wants to because it’s Christmas Eve, but she also feels like an idiot. 

Feels like she’s committing a sin against her parents because Cas is still wearing her dad and her mom is dead because of angel bullshit and here she is, thinking of them as… what? Family? Who else would you run to on Christmas? Cas and Dean are the closest thing she has, these days, and it feels like treachery to her mom and dad. 

But she’s lonely, damn it, and cold and tired and Dean is such a huge fucking mother hen and she wants one of his hugs. And his soup and his fussing, because it’s awesome. No-one’s fussed since her grandmother died. No-one’s cared enough. Cas tries, but he’s still kind of awful at it. Intense emotion he has down pat, but the little stuff, yeah. No. 

“Kid,” the waitress suddenly says at her elbow and Claire’s hands automatically drop the phone to go for the knife in her waistband and then – stop. The waitress intentionally misses her reaction, bends low, puts a fresh coke in front of her and says, “Whoever you wanna call? Just call ‘em. Night’s not getting any younger.”

Then she disappear and any other day of the year, Claire would flip her off and chafe at being given advice, but today….

Fuck it. 

Two rings. “Claire?”

“Hey, Dean.” 

“Something wrong? You need help?” He sounds so worried and Claire hates herself a little for how much she likes it. 

“No. I’m fine. It’s nothing. Just…,” she trails off, unsure of what to say. I’m lonely, please fetch me? She’s not sure if she can face Cas, though. Not tonight. Not when Christmas Eve always got Dad so excited. He loved leaving for church early, walking slowly and gushing over every piece of decoration on the way. He glowed with it. She wonders if there’s Christmas in heaven and if her parents are having it together. 

“You’re not working?” There are voices in the background, Sam and Cas, but they fade away as Dean leaves the room. 

“No. Finished up a job a few days ago. Just… chillin’, I guess. Relaxing.”

“That’s good. You with Jody for the holidays?”

“No. I’m in…,” she actually needs to look around for the answer. In the end, she finds it on the coaster under her glass. “Liberty Springs, Nebraska, actually.”

There’s a pause. Then… “D’you… want us to come fetch you?”

It’s stupid, the relief she feels that he _gets it_ without her having to say it. But, “I don’t… I’m not sure I can…could you come? Or Sam? I’m not sure I can face d-“ she bites her tongue, hard. “Cas. I’m not sure I can face Cas tonight.”

She loves Dean, a little, for not calling her on her slip. Instead she says, “Sure. What’s the place you’re in called?”

She tells him and he hums, nods, says, “Hang tight, okay. I’ll be there soon.”

He hangs up without saying goodbye because he knows she doesn’t like goodbyes and she leans back in her seat, because even with the way Dean drives, it’s hours from Kansas to here.

The door opens five minutes later and in comes Dean Winchester, shit-eating grin on his face as he strolls between the tables and shoves into Claire’s side of the booth without so much as a by-your-leave, to wrap an arm around her and squeeze. 

Claire cranes her neck for Castiel, can’t find him, wonders how – “He zapped me and Baby over and then went back home. He gets it, Claire, it’s okay. Besides, it’s his turn to deal with Sam’s bitchface over the decorations.”

“Decorations?”

Dean grins at her and it’s super unfair that one of the quasi-father figures in her life is hotter than sin. Cas looks like dad, so that’s something else, but Dean is just… fucking hot. Even though he’s ancient. 

“Me’n Cas decided to go all out this year. Cas just likes the lights, and I wanted… you know. But Sam thinks it’s kitschy and overkill and bitch, bitch, bitch. You know how he gets.” He rolls his eyes and Claire feels… anger. At Sam, just a little, because he has someone who wants to make their home look nice, someone who puts up decorations just so it’s cozy and pretty and he bitches about it. Claire had that once and now she doesn’t and how anyone can take that for granted is – 

Well. She likes Sam, most of the time, but she likes Dean better and she makes no secret out of it. Sam preaches. Dean takes her mini golfing and lets her goof off over milkshakes and shows her better ways to handle a machete. It’s no contest. 

Still, she’s a teenager, to she’s obligated to be obnoxious about it, pats his arm and says, saccharinely, “I’m sure it’s really pretty.”

Dean sticks his tongue out at her and hauls her in for a noogie like she’s twelve. 

Then, suddenly, the waitress is there again, and Claire reads her tense shoulders and the way she asks, “You ok, kid?”

She shrugs, nods. “Yeah, it’s fine. My dad’s here to pick me up.” She nudges into Dean’s side when he freezes, and he slips on his best conman grin and wink, puts the waitress at ease.

She nods, leaves. 

He turns to stare at Claire.

“What? I just didn’t want her to call the cops on your for molesting me, or something.”

He grimaces, at the molesting thing, or the dad thing, or… something. Emotions make Dean Winchester squirm like a worm on a hook. And Claire… is really fucking glad for it because it means he’s not going to touch any of _that_ with a ten foot pole. Win-win, really. 

He shakes his head. “So, what now?”

When she just shrugs, he raises one hand, starts ticking off options. “We can either take Baby and head for the bunker, where I made some delicious eggnog that I might be convinced to share, or we can stay here and drink or we can find a motel room and hole up for the night with shitty TV and whatever gas station food we can find.”

Claire, who’s kind of resigned herself to being dragged to the bunker already, gapes. “You’d stay with me? But Sam and Cas….”

Sam’s his brother and since he and Cas figured out their gay love for each other, Dean is pretty much joined to the angel by the hip. It’s adorable and puke-inducing. 

But Dean just shrugs. “Have I told you about that one Christmas we almost got ritually sacrificed and eaten by pagan gods? Spending it with you would be far from the worst Christmas I ever had.”

Since she’s never really sure whether he’s fucking with her or not when he trots out stories like that, Claire ignores it and tries to feel out her own emotions instead. Is she… disappointed at the idea of staying here?

Yes, yes, she actually is. 

“Bunker,” she says, finally, because she’s already called him like a needy little kid, she can go all out now. “I’d like to go,” home, “to the bunker.”

Dean smiles his Mona Lisa smile. “Then to the bunker we go.”

+

They find a station that blasts rocky Christmas songs and sing along to every single one of them while Dean lets the Impala fly down the highway toward the bunker.

It’s late by the time they get there, but Claire has mostly stopped feeling sorry for herself because she’s not alone but also, screaming along to songs about sexy Santa is also so far from how Christmas used to be that she can stomach it. It’s different. It’s good. 

By the time Dean parks in the garage and grabs her bag for her from the trunk, she’s almost positive she can stomach seeing her father’s face with Cas inside of it and that’s okay. 

She can let herself have this.

Dean looks at her like he maybe understands and takes her hand like she’s a little kid to lead her upstairs into the library that has long since become more living room than anything else. There are actual couches on one end now.

It’s… Christmasy. Lights all over, a tree so full of tinsel it’d probably set off a metal detector, all kinds of ornaments hung from the bookshelves and the light strings and Claire is pretty sure some of that stuff is tacked up by actual throwing stars. Throwing stars. As if living in a super-secret supernatural bunker isn’t edgy enough already. 

Sam’s sitting at the table, clicking away on his laptop and he looks up as they enter, smiles. “Hey, Claire,” he greets, zero surprise and one hundred percent actual joy. 

Cas pauses his fiddling by the tree and turns to give Claire one of those brilliant I-never-learned-how-to-hide-these-human-emotions smiles that light up his face in a way dad never managed and she finds, not for the first time, that the comparison doesn’t hurt anymore. 

No more than a dull throb, anyway. 

He crosses the distance between them so fast he might as well be flying and then stops, abruptly. Probably remembering that she didn’t want to see him a few hours ago. But. 

There it is again, that word. But. 

But he flew Dean to her anyway and he didn’t push and it’s almost 1 am now and he and Sam are still awake. Waiting up. For her and Dean. And his smiles are so different from dad’s and Claire misses him when she’s out on her own, and Dean and this smelly, old bunker and… and.

Almost as bad as but. 

“Hey,” she says. Smiles. 

He takes it as permission and closes the distance, wrapping her in a hug that she _swears_ has feathers in it, all warm and tight and soft and she thinks mom and dad would forgive her, for finding comfort in this angel. She stopped blaming him for dad’s death a long time ago, because she knows (remembers) his overwhelming desire to protect life, to keep his precious people safe, to _be good_ , and she knows he never wanted dad to die. They both got caught up in something too big, and Castiel survived and her dad didn’t. 

He wouldn’t begrudge her this. Neither would mom. She feels Dean at her back, warm and less soft but just as good and she’s too old for group hugs, but she holds on anyway because it’s Christmas and she wants to. 

She can have this. 

So she takes it. Cas still has no concept of the proper way to hug, and especially not of when to let go, so they keep holding on for way too long. Until Claire has enough. Until she’s ready. Then he takes her hand, gently, as Dean steps back and bends over Sam to give his brother a short update and a yank to his increasingly ridiculous hair.

She laughs at their tussle because they’re all of sixteen in the head, and lets Cas tow her to the tinsel monstrosity in one corner. “Dean and I decorated it ourselves,” he declares, proudly. 

Claire blinks against the onslaught. “It’s… bright,” she allows because everything else coming out of her mouth would be sarcasm right now and, well. No. 

Thankfully, Cas lets it be and points toward a small pile of presents to the left of the tree, instead. Most of them are wrapped bright pink. “Those are for you, but Dean won’t let you open them until tomorrow.” 

“Damn right I won’t! That’s not how it’s done, Cas!”

“In many countries around the globe, it is in fact-“

“In the morning! Stop bitching!”

Claire stares at the pile. It’s not very big, four or five, max, and from the looks of them, it’s clothes, maybe a book. The long one might, maybe, be a new machete? She and Dean have this thing with machetes. But they’re there. For her. And they’ve obviously been there for a while, not just last minute additions. Like they assumed that, at some point around Christmas, they’d have a chance to give them to her. Or for her to find them herself, under the ugly monster of a tree.

And that’s… “Guys!” she shouts, before the two idiots ether start fighting or making out like the teenagers they absolutely totally are _not_.

They stop. Dean jostles Cas, who jostles back with a sniff. “I told Cas the pink was overkill, but he’s been online again and it gives him ideas. He’s not, like stereotyping, or anything, though, right, Cas?”

“Of course not. Why would I do that? Claire is a capable and strong young woman and to imply she’s less because of her gender would be idiotic. Did you know that until a short while ago, pink was actually the color used to boys and blue for girls? It’s only recently, that-“

Dean puts a hand over his mouth. Cas frowns, goes cross-eyed to glare at it, and then huffs and gives up.

Dean lowers his hand and Claire decides, screw it, before they start up again and simply lunges, trusting they’ll catch her between them. And they do, and it’s her second hug in five minutes and that’s, like, her yearly quota filled right there, but they got her presents like it’s the most natural thing in the world and placed them under their tree for her to find and that means _everything_. 

A flash blinds her. Sam grins and quickly puts his phone in his pocket before anyone can attempt to steal it. “You were too cute to pass up,” he mocks, but gentler than usual. 

Dean flips him off, Cas sniffs at him and Claire doesn’t give a flying fuck, because it’s Christmas and she has a tree and presents and she’s not alone and it’s okay. It’s good. It’s warm fuzzy feelings and safety and a soft place to land and-

“Hey, didn’t you promise me eggnog?”

Dean rolls his eyes and points toward the table, where glasses and a pitcher are set up, already very clearly well used.   
And eggnog. 

Claire smiles as she pours four glasses and passes them around, holds up the last one. “Merry Christmas,” she says and, for the first time in a long, long time, she means it. 

“Merry Christmas, Claire.”

+


End file.
